SONGS OF THE PIXIES[40:1]
The Pixies, in the superstition of Devonshire, are a race of beings invisibly small, and harmless or friendly to man. At a small distance from a village in that county, half-way up a wood-covered hill, is an excavation called the Pixies' Parlour. The roots of old trees form its ceiling; and on its sides are innumerable cyphers, among which the author discovered his own cypher and those of his brothers, cut by the hand of their childhood. At the foot of the hill flows the river Otter.
To this place the Author, during the summer months of the year 1793, conducted a party of young ladies; one of whom, of stature elegantly small, and of complexion colourless yet clear, was proclaimed the Faery Queen. On which occasion the following Irregular Ode was written.
I
Whom the untaught Shepherds call
Pixies in their madrigal,
Fancy's children, here we dwell:
Welcome, Ladies! to our cell.
Here the wren of softest note [5]
Builds its nest and warbles well;
Here the blackbird strains his throat;
Welcome, Ladies! to our cell.
When fades the moon to shadowy-pale,
And scuds the cloud before the gale, [10]
Ere the Morn all gem-bedight
Hath streak'd the East with rosy light,
We sip the furze-flower's fragrant dews
Clad in robes of rainbow hues;
Or sport amid the shooting gleams [15]
To the tune of distant-tinkling teams,
While lusty Labour scouting sorrow
Bids the Dame a glad good-morrow,
Who jogs the accustom'd road along,
And paces cheery to her cheering song. [20]
III
But not our filmy pinion
We scorch amid the blaze of day,
When Noontide's fiery-tresséd minion
Flashes the fervid ray.
Aye from the sultry heat 25
We to the cave retreat
O'ercanopied by huge roots intertwin'd
With wildest texture, blacken'd o'er with age:
Round them their mantle green the ivies bind,
Beneath whose foliage pale 30
Fann'd by the unfrequent gale
We shield us from the Tyrant's mid-day rage.